Alonso at Indy 'has exceeded expectations' - Brown

The big Indy 500 story of the decade is close to reaching its conclusion. The short-term marriage of Andretti Autosport, McLaren Racing, Honda and Fernando Alonso will turn its final lap on Sunday, and through weeks of private testing, practice and qualifying, the result has been nothing less than stunning.

Alonso will start fifth for the 101st Indy 500 – the highest-placed rookie in the field – and through everything the arrangement has brought so far, McLaren executive director Zak Brown says the experiment with the Andretti team has been "awesome."

"There's a handful of outstanding IndyCar teams, but the culture and the way Michael's let McLaren in, let Fernando into his environment, it has been awesome," he told RACER. "It's all been great, [a] very positive experience for everyone. It's gone, so far, textbook perfect. So in that sense, it's exceeded our expectations because it never goes textbook perfect. It's easier to write it on a piece of paper, but something goes wrong somewhere. There's just so many moving pieces. Knock on wood, it hasn't.

"We've got to keep doing what we're doing, which is just keeping our head down, because we've got 500 miles to go and it can all go right, it can all go wrong, it can go somewhere in the middle. I think we made the right decision but, you know, we still have 500 miles to go."

Brown's concept, to take McLaren back to the Indy 500 for the first time since the 1970s, was a risk for someone with less than six months on the job. As the new boss of such a storied grand prix team, any missteps with Alonso's Indy effort would reflect poorly on the American, but as Brown (pictured at left, with Alonso) shares, his dream has become a rallying point within the company.

"And the real credit goes to all those people making it happen," he said. "While it might have started off as my wild and crazy idea, it took the executive committee, my bosses, and the balls to make the decision, right? This wasn't my decision, it was their decision. And then ultimately it's the collective grouping of the men and women of McLaren, everyone here who are all new to IndyCar, to work as well as we have to be able to execute as we have. So far we've ticked all the boxes we've wanted to on and off the track."

The volume of coverage and interest so far has also caught Brown's eye.

"It's a great story," he continued. "I can't really recall one as fun as this for the period of time that it's been going. We've got 25, 30 people at McLaren who all are touching this program, they've all done exactly as they should. Fernando's loving it, Michael's team's is all in, IndyCar's embraced us – the whole sport's embraced us. The amount of exposure generated for IndyCar, the Indy 500, for Fernando, McLaren and Honda has been awesome. It's a really good story that I hope I can say we exceeded our expectations by the end of Sunday."

Brown also reports that from inside McLaren and its executive committee, the IndyCar and Indy 500 experience has been warmly received. The larger topic at hand on returning for the 102nd Indy 500, and possibly as a full-time entrant, will be discussed once the checkered flag has waved over the 101st.

"All the right people were at qualifying last weekend," he said. "The executive committee, Jonathan Neal, Eric Boullier, and company. And they all walked away with a very positive feeling toward this whole effort. They being the racers that they are, they don't want to get ahead of themselves. This has been a great program so far. We want it to end on a strong note, and then we will further evaluate.

"We have loved the experience and think it's been very good for our racing team, and therefore something that we want to continue doing in the future. But I think it's important we get through the month and don't analyze our future potential participation too early without having the full experience."